Hillel Zeitlin
Hillel Zeitlin (born 1872 in Korma , Mogilev Gouvernement , Russian Empire ; died 1942 in the Warsaw Ghetto ) was a Hebrew and Yiddish writer, publicist and religious thinker.
Life
Hillel Zeitlin came from a strictly Hasidic family of scholars, received a thorough training in Tanach , Talmud and New Hebrew literature and studied natural science subjects. For many years he was a children's teacher in several places, mainly concerned with philosophy and initially with Spinoza in particular , before turning to the newer British philosophers Herbert Spencer , Charles Darwin and John Stuart Mill , but also to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche .
During this phase of life - in the meantime he had moved to Homel - he began to loosen his religious ties and approached secularism . He considered political Zionism to be a wrong track and was a supporter of practical territorialism, for which he also campaigned journalistically. From 1902 to 1905 he lived in Ruslavl in the Smolensk Governorate and was actively involved in the publication of various Hebrew magazines.
From 1906 he lived in Vilnius and worked for the Yiddish folk . From 1906 to 1907 he edited the Jüdisches Volksblatt in Warsaw , but also worked on Haint and other Jewish magazines and anthologies. From 1910 he was the main editor and publisher of the Yiddish daily newspaper Moment , but also engaged in other activities, e. B. through his participation in one of the first Yiddish encyclopaedic dictionaries, which finally appeared in Warsaw in 1917.
After the First World War , he turned back to his ancestral religion, became orthodox and observant, but remained intellectually independent and thoroughly original and unconventional in his thinking.
At the age of 71 he was killed by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto while he was holding a copy of the Zohar in his hands, wrapped in a tallit and tefillin . Most of his family was also killed, only his son Aaron survived.
His sons Aaron Zeitlin (1898–1973) and Elchonon Zeitlin (1920–1942) were Yiddish authors as well as himself.
Works (selection)
- Hatow we-hara ("Good and Evil"), 1898 (on optimism and pessimism)
- Monograph on Spinoza, 1900
- Monograph on Nietzsche, ca.1901
- Writings , 1910
- Dus Problem fun Gits un Bad ba Jiden un other peoples , Warsaw 1911
- Rabbi Israel Baalschemtow , Warsaw 1911
- The old vine , 1912
- About R. Schneor Salman von Ladi , 1912
- Chassidoth , 1922
- Wus it lives and sings in me , o. J.
Literature (selection)
- Reisen , Leksikon , Wilna 1926 ff.
- Josef Lin, article Hillel Zeitlin , in: Jüdisches Lexikon , Berlin 1927, Vol. IV / 2
- Zeitlin Family , in YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Zeitlin, Hillel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Hebrew and Yiddish writer and publicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1872 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Korma , Mogilev Governorate , Russian Empire |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1942 |
| Place of death | Warsaw |